The changing face of finance

All eyes are on Mario Draghi once again, who is holding an ECB meeting in Brussels today. That once thing both Draghi and the rest of the world are waiting for is Spain‘s formal request for a bailout that would trigger the newly agreed bond-purchasing program of the Union’s central bank. Until that happens, however, nothing else will. Most likely statement to come out of today’s press conference is therefore probably a request for a request for a bailout. read article

Meanwhile, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has come back from it’s survey of 71 European banks, finding that only four of them fulfilled the new extra-super-crisis-resistant capital requirements of 9%. The survey did not include Spain’s Bankia or any Greek bank. The EBA said further that banks that don’t reach the prescribed ratios won’t be paying dividends or bonuses. read article (read WSJ Deutschland)

Morgan Stanley, which had been rumored to be looking into selling its commodities division, has reportedly entered talks with the Qatari Investment Authority, the 12th largest sovereign wealth fund in the world that owns every other bit of London. The sale is motivated by new regulation through the Dodd-Frank Act and more specifically the Volcker rule, which prevents proprietary trading. read article

Similar news from J.P. Morgan: LDH Energy, currently owned by Louis Dreyfus and J.P. Morgan’s hedge fund Highbridge Capital, will be sold to the CEO of Highbridge, Glenn Dubin, and founder of Tudor Investment Corp, Paul Tudor Jones. read article

Both these sales, though the former more so than the latter, are indicators of how post-crisis regulation is shaping the financial services sector into something new. The first result of this seems to be a cutting back of those bank divisions that that were added in the scope of expansions, during more pleasant economic times. Of course, this is not exclusive to commodities. Credit Suisse is looking to get rid of its $385bn asset management division as a “direct consequence” of not being a major asset manager, while Lloyds TSB has continuously offloaded its private equity assets, worth more than £1bn. Time to cut your losses and move on.

In the US presidential race, Romney won the first TV debate. The Atlantic said Obama lacked energy and enthusiasm, the Handelsblatt called him “pale” [which, of course, is a hilarious figure of speech here].

Greece, in its ineptitude of being a serious country, is on track to pool €100m to build a new formula one Grand Prix track. Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of Formula One Group, who is vainly trying to float the company on the Singapore stock exchange, has allegedly backed the project. Not necessarily related, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands have demanded to delay the next bailout tranche for Greece, worth €31bn, until November. read article

In other news, Facebook has hit the 1bn users benchmark. Fair enough, that IS cool. read article

One Response

thank you for all news ..intristing about F1
buy bond’s MD is not something who can help the situation (this is not resolution) provisore..we needed deffinitive resolution; (don’t have ) ? mabybe .but why not ..i don;t know
about the commodities really is very intristing ..we have to see l like oportunity for grow the economy .
US presidential debate i saw..AND I HAVE TO SAY
M.ROMNEY was agressive (i come for winn) and he did
PRESIDENT OBAMA was concentrate and very sure what he say (i like )
for me both did not sayed something new ..both have the same program with diffrent way
one say iam agree for this but not for this
others say i am agree for this bit not for this so one balance agremment for both .so i am not ROMNEY winn or OBAMA WINN ….BOTH THE SAME
nothing new ..